The Sopranos Is Completely Fucking Overrated
The Sopranos Is Completely Fucking Overrated
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Hot Take: The Sopranos Is Overrated
The Sopranos was great. A multidimensional portrayal of a sociopathic murderer in Tony Soprano masterfully acted by James Gandolfini, The Sopranos was truly a groundbreaking take on the mafia genre.
After another rewatch, we argue that while The Sopranos is great, it doesn’t belong in the same tier as shows like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, or even Succession.
An entertaining show? Yes. On the Mount Rushmore of TV dramas? Absolutely not.
Fuck You, Fans
Surely you’ve heard about the controversial series finale with the screen fading to black.
After investing 86 hours into the show, viewers were left with an unsatisfying and ambiguous ending.
While it was accepted (and confirmed by the showrunners years later) that Tony get killed in front of his family at the diner, this particular piece of fan disrespect is not what this is about.
This is what we’re talking about.
In “Pine Barrens” (season 3, episode 11), Paulie and Chris are sent to collect money from Valery, a Russian mob associate with close ties to the boss. Things go awry, and they end up fighting the Russian and driving him to the woods to dig his own grave.
He fights them off and escapes, potentially warning Slava, the Russian mob boss, of the botched hit, starting a war between the two crime families.
Or does he? Who fucking knows, because the show never told us.
Valery is last seen running off into the woods bleeding after being shot, and this incredible cliffhanger right before the season finale never got mentioned again.
Teasing their viewers like this with no payoff, then ending the show ambiguously is an incredible pair of fuck you’s to the fans.
Insufferable Characters
Put simply, A.J. Soprano is one of the worst characters in a prestige TV show.
Poor writing, poor character development, poor acting. A total blown opportunity.
We get it, you want to show how the crushing weight of being the confused son of an alpha male destroys you. Early season A.J. was annoying, mid season was dumb, late season was pathetic.
Robert Iler’s acting was bottom tier throughout the show and made each of his scenes and storylines painful.
Wasted Screen Time
A gay mobster portrayed onscreen was new narrative territory in the early 2000’s (and possibly based on real life).
But making the viewers sit through hours of the gay Italian version How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Tony in the middle of a heated war with the New York family was not an efficient use of screen time. This dragged on for way too long before reaching its inevitable conclusion.
In the same season, with Tony in a coma after getting shot by Junior, the show did an entire episode of Tony dreaming about himself as a traveling salesman named Kevin Finnerty. Dream sequences are nothing new to the Sopranos, but an entire episode that doesn’t advance the plot? Especially after a climactic near death scene the previous episode? Stop wasting our time.
In Conclusion
The Sopranos was a great, groundbreaking show. However, the showrunners made several deliberate choices that bordered on straight up disrespect of the fan base.
With so many people ranking The Sopranos as one of the best of all time, we have no choice but to deem it overrated.
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